The Grand Challenges program hosts two events, Grand Challenges Day and Space Day, during Research and Discovery Week, Nov. 8-15. Both events will be held in the Student Union Building, Ballroom C.

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Two UNM Grand Challenges teams will receive congressionally directed funds this year to complete research projects. Due in part to the efforts of Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, the Sustainable Space Research team and the Child Health team will each receive funding for their projects. These funds are facilitating education, community engagement, and workforce development, all important objectives of Grand Challenges research programs.

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The University of New Mexico Sustainable Space Research Grand Challenge team aims to develop a center of space science-exploration excellence at UNM by uniting relevant and diverse space expertise. To that end, last month, the team brought industry, lab, and community space partners together with faculty from a range of disciplines and institutions to connect all the various space-related work happening in New Mexico.

The event, held at the SUB, showcased 15 presentations focused on various aspects of the space industry. Topics included cultivating food in space, pioneering potential construction materials, exploring space law, and integrating art into lunar or Martian projects. Attendees had the opportunity to discover UNM's space-related initiatives alongside statewide endeavors, fostering connections and inspiring collaboration across diverse fields of space exploration and research.

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The University of New Mexico’s Just Transition to Green Energy Grand Challenge team hosted Wade Buchanan, director of Colorado’s Office of Just Transition, for a public presentation at UNM and a dinner with representatives from several New Mexico state agencies recently.

Colorado created the Office of Just Transition in 2019 to assist workers and communities that will be negatively impacted by the closure of coal mines and coal-fired power plants in the state.

UNM’s Just Transition Grand Challenge team seeks to identify and evaluate the opportunities, challenges, and policy options for achieving an inclusive and equitable transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.

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Just Transition to Green Energy Grand Challenge team members Gabriel Sanchez and Shannon Sanchez-Youngman led a team of researchers who recently published the Southeastern New Mexico Oil & Gas Workforce Study.  The study, commissioned by the nonprofit Somos Un Pueblo Unido, dove into the quality of life experienced by oil and gas workers in the state’s Permian Basin–the majority of which are Hispanic New Mexicans. This incorporated the past and present conditions, and how the influence of clean energy could shift their career plans moving forward.  

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The Child Health Grand Challenge team at The University of New Mexico is undertaking a two-year study on child maltreatment incidence. The team has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to carry out their research.

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The University of New Mexico’s Successful Aging Grand Challenges team is involved with the design and delivery of the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research (ICFSR) next month in Albuquerque.

The conference will be held March 20-22 at Hotel Albuquerque Old Town.

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New Mexico researchers and collaborating institutions are known to send some unique and unusual plants and vegetables into space – take for instance the green chile launch of 2019 – and next week, UNM Biology Professor David Hanson and his team are sending up tomatoes.

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The University of New Mexico is aiming to tackle child health, the transition to clean energy, and space research as part of a collaborative and competitive “Grand Challenges” initiative.

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After a highly competitive process, University of New Mexico President Garnett S. Stokes has announced the three newest multi-disciplinary teams to join the Grand Challenges program as Level 2 teams. 

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Grand Challenges Level 2 Request for Proposals opened in early 2023 and is now closed.

Proposals were due May 1, 2023.

Teams to be introduced during Grand Challenges kick-off Sept. 1

For the last three years researchers at The University of New Mexico have set out to collaborate and address problems that impact individuals on a global, national and regional scale through the Grand Challenges program ­­­­– now that program is expanding with the addition of 10 more concept teams.

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The Request for Proposals to join the Grand Challenges Program as a Level 1 interdisciplinary research team opened in April 2022 and is now closed.

Dr. Brigman will represent UNM’s Health Sciences Campus on the Substance Use Disorders Grand Challenges Team.

Dr. Brigman received his B.A. in Psychology from Loyola University Maryland and went on to complete his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from George Washington University. His postdoctoral fellowship was in the Laboratory of Genomic and Behavioral Neuroscience in the NIAAA Intramural Program where he twice won the Fellows Award for Research Excellence. He established his research program in Department of Neurosciences at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in 2011. He received a Regents’ Lectureship in 2016 for excellence in research, teaching and service and was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2017. The focus of research in the Brigman Lab is to further our understanding of the maladaptive behavioral changes that accompany alcohol exposure, drug addiction and numerous neuropsychiatric disorders.

A series of fun, short discussions were held around interdisciplinary research areas of interest in Spring 2022. Faculty, researchers, creative artists, and post-docs were invited to participate.

During the Fall of 2021, Grand Challenges collaborated with COMM 1130 instructors to encourage undergraduate students to engage with one or more of the three challenges. Led by Evan Ashworth, students were assigned a speech that focuses the importance of the challenges. Each section instructor put forth the speeches from their section that best met the criteria. A total of 31 finalists were reviewed and eight presentations were selected to receive recognition for “Excellence in Undergraduate Student Scholarship, Grand Challenges” or Honorable Mention. Among the award winners are:  Makylah Apostol, Danger Varoz, Nathan Sandoval, Gabrielle Flure, Ronan Lawrence, Austin McOwiti, Devon Norberto, and Jack Rosgen.

To see the winning presentations, visit:

UNM Student Scholarship that Contributes to Addressing New Mexico’s Grand Challenges :: Grand Challenges | The University of New Mexico

UNM Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Yi He is leading a research project that investigates a potentially groundbreaking way to treat drug addiction. The study uses computational modeling to understand the role of the PICK1 protein in the brain of an individual suffering from drug addiction.

For a psychoactive drug to take effect in the brain, signals need to pass from one neuron to another across a gap, or synapse, between cells. To do this, one cell releases chemicals into the synapse, and the other cell detects the chemicals using receptors on the cell’s membrane. Previous studies have shown that a protein called PICK1 is responsible for embedding and removing certain receptors from the cell membrane.

These specialized chemical receptors seem to play an important role in drug addiction. He explains that an individual suffering from drug addiction has fewer receptors, on average, than a person who has not used drugs. This reduced number of receptors makes it very painful for such individuals to stop using drugs, encouraging the cycle of addiction. “The ideal scenario is that we want to restore the regular number of receptors, so that [the patient] will receive the same amount of stimulation as before they took drugs – basically, restore them to who they were before they started to take drugs,” says He.

It is believed that the PICK1 protein may hold the key to giving those suffering from drug addiction a clean slate biologically. There is a lot left to be learned about how the protein works, however, before a PICK1 treatment can be developed. He explains, “We know that PICK1’s responsibility is to transport and regulate the number of receptors on the cell surface, but how does the cell tell PICK1 to transport the receptors from inside the cell to the surface or to retrieve it back? How [does] PICK1, which is just a protein that can’t think, perform this biological function?”

To answer these questions about the mechanisms of PICK1, He and his team are using a high-performance computing cluster hosted by the Center for Advanced Research Computing to perform computational modeling. “To study the interactions with PICK1 with these receptors and to trace the whole process at an atomic resolution [using a wet lab procedure] is extremely difficult, if not impossible. That’s why we’re depending on finding a solution from a computational point of view,” He reports.

He’s study is being funded by UNM’s Substance Use Disorders Grand Challenge Award. The program funds nine projects, involving many different UNM research groups, all aimed at better understanding substance use.

This ambitious project is expected to involve five to ten years of intensive research. “Developing a drug for this protein is not a trivial process,” He comments. While the study will be laborious, its results have the potential to help millions of Americans struggling with drug addiction.

The Vice President for Research recently visited the Valencia Campus to explore ways to better partner with branch campus faculty in Grand Challenge research and education initiatives. Grand Challenges leaders visited with Valencia campus leaders, as well as the UNM Valencia Instructional Council. The Council provided many outstanding recommendations for leveraging the Grand Challenges to enrich undergraduate education at the branch and central campuses. Conversations also focused on possible undergraduate research collaborations. In addition, Valencia faculty showcased three great undergraduate student researchers who are working on water-related projects, one of whom is now continuing his education at UNM Central Campus. These researchers and their projects are recognized on the Grand Challenges Student Research website (https://grandchallenges.unm.edu/education/student-research.html).

The Successful Aging team recently sponsored four pilot research projects. The sixteen Principal Investigators and Co-Investigators for these proposals came from eleven different UNM departments/units and community organizations. On October 30, 2019, Successful Aging leaders met together with the pilot project leaders to help facilitate cross-pollination among the pilot teams, and to help share resources. Project titles and personnel can be found at: https://grandchallenges.unm.edu/three-grand-challenges/successful-aging/index.html.

For the first time at UNM students in recovery or seeking recovery from substance abuse and other addictions have an official meeting space to help them in their journey. The UNM Collegiate Recovery Center (CRC), located in the basement of Logan Hall, is modeled after similar programs at other Universities. The center is open each day from noon – 3 p.m. Programming includes four meetings a week: Mindfulness for Recovery (Monday at 3 p.m.), Recovery Talk (Thursday at 12:30 p.m.), AA Meeting (Friday at 1 p.m.), Veterans in Recovery (Friday at 3 p.m.). “This is a very important population on campus that is underserved,” Department of Psychology Program Specialist, Marni Goldberg said. Goldberg notes that it’s important students understand this is not a treatment center and does not include counseling sessions. Although, she can issue referrals. “We’re here to support students who are in recovery from substance abuse, gambling, sex, food and whoever is on a recovery journey,” she said. Goldberg is running the program along with eight volunteer students. In 2019, CRC was was awarded a $3,000 UNM Grand Challenges pilot grant to initiate programming and to complete a campus-wide needs assessment, partnering with COSAP.

The Sustainable Water Resources team conducted a workshop on November 12, 2019 to foster research interdisciplinary collaboration in anticipation of applying for upcoming research grants, including the following programs: NSF Research Traineeship, NSF Sustainable Urban Systems Research Centers, NSF Biology Integration Institutes, NSF CNH2 Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems.  More than 30 faculty researchers from at least 14 academic departments actively participated in these focused discussions.

A team of UNM geographers sponsored by the Sustainable Water Resources Grand Challenge, led by Dr. Benjamin Warner, and including Tucker Colvin, Amy Jones, Rachel Sanchez, and Indu Roychowdhury, is documenting the challenges faced by rural New Mexican communities as they work to manage their aging drinking water systems. The team uses surveys and qualitative interviews to engage with rural water managers across the state.  Researchers have found that the ability of water managers to address long-term challenges to water sustainability like drought is compromised by a myriad of short-term governance challenges.

Check out the new Grand Challenge webpage devoted to showcasing the challenge-related research conducted by UNM graduate and undergraduate students (https://grandchallenges.unm.edu/education/student-research.html).  Among the student research included there are posters presented at Shared Knowledge Conference (hosted by the Office of Graduate Studies).  Shared Knowledge Conference is an outstanding multi-disciplinary showcase for graduate student research and included 16 research projects that help address the three Grand Challenges.